Swing Back the Pendulum
Page 39
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By E. H. B. Palmer, O.B.E.
THE Transport Act, 1947, gave evidence of so violent a bias as to make one believe that our national idea of equity had gone completely overboard. If a swing in the opposite direction takes us as much to the right, who is to blame?
The late Government rode its hobby horse of nationalization without restraint and, given the time, it would have been ridden to death at the behests of certain extremists whose recommendations did little but expose their ignorance. They had their eyes on the C-licensees, which was a little ill-advised, for they are legion. We have had examples of how an unknown factor can upset the electoral balance, and it can do so again.
The Transport Bill makes a promise for the future which we can appreciate above petty quibbling. Misquoting a famous humorist," Slice it where you will and the result is equity." The Bill does not profess to please all the people all the time, but it will certainly serve most of the people most of the time.
The preamble to the Bill itself is an encouraging confirmation of the White Paper, although hauliers who accepted too literally the ambiguous wording of the White Paper on the relaxation of licensing may be a little disappointed by the relevant provisions of the Bill. They must, however, remember that there is still the need to guard against wasteful competition.
Having studied the Bill, the independent operator may ask: "But what do I get out of it?" First must he accept the fact that those who buy transport units will also receive a special A licence free from radius'restriction and current for the full statutory period. These operators will, perhaps, be a jump ahead of the established haulier.
Unwanted Freedom
This apparent advantage will, in my opinion, work itself out, because most of those who have been restricted to a 25-mile radius for the past three years have re-orientated themselves within this radius and have adjusted their services accordingly. In their case, the immediate lifting of the restriction may bring them a freedom of which they no longer wish to take advantage. Those with permits are well placed, because their transition will be automatic. Incidentally, the market in transport units is an open one in which the established haulier may buy at his economic level and with his experience of the possibilities.
Those of us who are in and out of the Traffic Courts find much of interest in the amendments of grounds for the granting and refusing of licences. Hitherto objectors have enjoyed a free hand, comparatively speaking. It has not been incumbent on them to be particularly specific. In fact, in 99 cases out of 100 they have produced no evidence beyond the fact of their own existence as carriers, and they have relied on crossexamination to show that neither the applicant nor his witnesses is conversant with alternative facilities.
In one case, it is recorded, such tactics were reduced to a farce. A witness, presented with a list of alternative facilities, destroyed its value by showing that it was out of date, that some of the operators had long since gone out of business and that others had died. In future, the onus of proof that there are such grounds for the objection shall lie with the objector.
Again, in considering whether existing transport facilities are to be treated as suitable, the Licensing Authority shall have regard to the relative efficiency, reliability and adequacy of the existing facilities up to the date of the application and the facilities which the applicant will provide if his application is granted, and to all relevant considerations, including the charges made, and to be made, in respect of those facilities.
At first sight, these amendments appear to be much in favour of the applicant. Rather might it be said that the intention is to restore the balance. Like the transgressor, the way of an objector in the future may be hard. Some of us sincerely hope so, but we may rest assured that it will never be sufficiently hard to negative the possibility of the refusal of art application. Many of us have been irked by the odds against the applicant, and these amendments will, therefore, be greatly appreciated.
No R.H.E. Objections
As regards future objections, an agreeable feature will be the elimination of the Road Haulage Executive, which has worded its objections in the vaguest of terms and far too often has required the court to accept statements of idle vehicle-days per month without information as to how, when, where and why. The Executive's evidence, when more absolute, can, however, be extremely damaging, as was illustrated recently when it was claimed that, at a certain depot, a large number of drivers had been dismissed through lack of work.
The value of such evidence tends to be reduced when one hears an executive of British Road Services declare, quite fairly, that he could not entertain certain work as an economic proposition, whereas he had, as an independent haulier, found it profitable.
I suggest that the industry should not accept the levy as an imposition, but as something that it would have willingly paid over and over again during the past five years to secure emancipation. The present Government has taken over a bad debt which can be recovered in no other way. The tragedy is that those responsible for such embarrassments are now attempting to aggravate them by obstruction.
We need pay no regard to the threat that all these things will be taken from us when the Labour Party returns to power. It is just a calculated statement made by those who are well versed in dragging red herrings
across the trail. In 1933 the road haulage industry came on to the map in its proper perspective. For the past five years it has been in bondage. From now onward it will rebuild its fortunes and its service to others on a sure foundation. The mainspring of this readjustment is public interest—not the synthetic interest promoted by propaganda, but personal interest based on the need of the man in the street.
The Bill and the ensuing Act may offer loopholes for evasion, but it will provide a reasonable encouragement to private enterprise, and we can ask no more.